So one of Lee Tran Lam’s last tracks was Perth producer Ta-ku‘s “Broke As“, which is his take on TLC’s “No Scrubs“, so I had to skip back to 2000 and 555 Records‘ stellar Chihuahuas and Chinese Noodles compilation which featured one of Kid606‘s earliest(?) forays into digitally-fucked-with r’n’b mashups…

Dalhous is the more beat-based project of Blackest Ever Black artists Young Hunting, a dark ambient/experimental duo. Post-dubstep beats, still a really dark sound. Reminding me of Raime, Blackest Ever Black’s darlings from last year. Looking forward to this album.

And then we’re in Sydney for a really fine selection of local electronica. We start with solo producer Camus, whose hip-hop beats fit nicely with current trends in electronic music (don’tcha know), as do those of, I guess by now, elder statesman Monk Fly. “One Blap” is really one of the best things in some time. Yes.

And a couple of years after his May Day Radio album came out, Westernsynthetics has released a remix album which runs the gamut from almost-anthemic drum’n’bass through Gentleforce‘s ambient techno to the twitchy stepper from dubstep legend Gravious.

Speaking of well-overdue remix albums, Comatone‘s debut album came out over 10 years ago. Tonight we heard a slightly cheeky preview of one “remix”, actually a fantastic cover by The Fantastic Terrific Munkle. Look out for the whole remix album coming soon, I hope!

And from here it’s time to head back to 2012 for some of the best drum’n’bass (well, drill’n’bass I guess) of the year. Starting with Ruby My Dear, and a newly-discovered track in fact from 2011, but then we hear from his excellent 2012 album, a track from drum’n’bass hero of the moment Fanu, one from Luke Vibert’s unearthed Plug recordings (released in 2012, albeit produced back in the mid-’90s), and the very Vibert-influenced Loops Haunt.

Back in 2013, we heard a couple of tracks from Macedonian producer Nina Georgieva. We need to hear from more female producers of electronic music, and indeed from more international artists; we also heard a remix by her of Bulgarian artist Mloski, and these were brought to us by the Australian-based electronic label Enig’matik Sounds.

Last week I played a track from the Philippe Petit-curated compilation put out by Portuguese publisher Antibothis. Tonight it’s a collaboration between Scanner and si-cut.db, both veteran electronic producers and associates of Petit, with an excellent piece of dark electronica.

And finally, Petit’s collaborator of last week, Michel Banabila, with another stunning piece of dark electronica also.

Labels and artists!

email: utilityfog at frogworth dot com
Utility Fog teeters on the cusp between acoustic and electronic, organic and digital. Constantly changing and rearranging, this aural cloud of nanotech consumes genres and spits them out in new forms. Whether cataloguing the jungle resurgence, tracking the ups and downs of noise and drone, or unearthing the remnants of glitch and folktronica, all is contextualised within artist & genre histories for a fulfilling sonic journey.
Since all these genre names are already pretty ridiculous, we thought we'd coin a new one. So "postfolkrocktronica" it is. Wear it.